Chapter 13: Why Won’t She Leave?

"Child, you've consumed far too many potions lately. You must take better care of yourself, understand? And do eat more - you're much too small."

After breakfast, Madam Pomfrey pressed both the water flask and the small crystal vial into Lys's arms.

Juggling her Standard Book of Spells, reading primer, large water flask, and wand, she awkwardly shuffled toward the dungeon entrance, intending to return to her dormitory.

She spotted Sirius Black in conversation with the radiant Narcissa Black from the opening feast. To pass, she'd need to squeeze through the narrow gap between them.

Please spare her - even without prior experience, Lys knew that in situations like this, invisibility was the best defense.

Do other first-years have such eventful school lives? Lys wondered, shrinking into the shadow of a suit of armor.

"Evading responsibility... disgrace... family crisis..."

"Coward... Mother's favorite son... leave me alone!"

Lys fidgeted nervously, wondering when their argument would end. She needed to check her schedule - hopefully there were no morning classes.

"Disowned... too willful..."

"Madwoman... powerful madwoman!... I don't need..."

A metallic clatter startled Lys from her thoughts. Sirius Black held a small bag, shaking it violently. An impossible number of gold coins spilled from the tiny pouch, bouncing and rolling across the floor. As the coins continued falling, both parties' expressions darkened ominously.

Lys yearned to move closer to hear more, but Sirius Black threw down the pouch and stormed toward her direction, his cloak billowing dramatically. Frightened, she pressed herself further behind the armor.

Watching the handsome young prince sweep past, Lys kept glancing anxiously at Narcissa - why wouldn't she leave?

And Narcissa? She glanced at the scattered coins, then lifted her head slightly, drawing a measured breath. Lys couldn't quite decipher her expression.

Lys looked between Narcissa ahead and the dungeon entrance behind, where several students were clearly hovering but refusing to enter!

Gathering her belongings, Lys approached the luminous Narcissa. She set her things in a corner and began collecting the coins by handfuls, stuffing them into the deceptively small pouch embroidered with two greyhounds, swords, and stars.

Seeing no more coins in sight, she held up the bag toward Narcissa, who regarded her with a sidelong glance.

Neither spoke. Lys stood awkwardly holding the pouch.

With a stiff smile, Narcissa waved her wand, making the small pouch float beside her. Another wave brought Lys's stack of books and flask back to her hands. As Lys prepared to hurry back to her dormitory, several coins flew out from corners and beneath the armor, settling beside Madam Pomfrey's Essence of Dittany.

When Lys turned to Narcissa in surprise, she saw only a proudly lifted head retreating and heard a cool, polite "Thank you."

Reading, collecting newspapers from the common room, consulting her primer, occasionally examining those few coins - with occasional nodding greetings from her Greengrass roommate, days passed peacefully for a time.

The stubborn broom that wouldn't rise in Flying class, cauldrons exploded by Gryffindors in Potions, the barely comprehensible Defense Against the Dark Arts - school life proved rather monotonous.

In her only book, Herpol had made countless friends after leaving his territory and found fertile land. Why was Hogwarts so different?

No one spoke to her, just endless incomprehensible books, impossible homework, and failed spells...

Sighing as she chewed a mysterious meat sandwich at the long table, Lys reflected that she dared not use spells for fear of returning to the hospital wing. Potions and Herbology intrigued her, but they weren't daily classes.

Most crucially, the professors' required 10-inch essays had her pinned to a corner table in the common room, still struggling to reach sufficient length.

She even resorted to illustrations for the creature descriptions in her Defense Against the Dark Arts essay, her limited vocabulary insufficient to write sentences the professor could comprehend.

Her Potions homework, returned for grammar and spelling errors, became afternoon tea entertainment for her roommate Greengrass and other noble young ladies.

After breakfast, curled in her common room corner, Lys massaged her left arm. "Tch, it doesn't hurt when reading newspapers, only when writing essays. How troublesome."

Examining her quill's increasingly split tip, Lys pinched it, hoping it would last a bit longer as she began today's assignment on her blank parchment: "The Implications of Magical History for Wizards."

Lys concluded the biggest implication was that there were none, seeing no difference between past and present wizards - though perhaps that was because she kept falling asleep in History of Magic.